Angeli Trilogy: Angeli Books 1-3

by Amy Vansant

  Anne’s head nodded. It took her a panicked moment to realize it was Con nodding in agreement and that she hadn’t lost control of herself.

  “Just say yes,” hissed Anne. “Don’t move me like a puppet!”

  Sorry.

  “It’s okay. It just freaked me out. So. Anyway, my point is, who’s going to kill the Archs? That kid can’t; he has the same powers as the Archs themselves. I was able to drain him and even if he could drain Archs, he was terrible in battle. Michael would have crushed him if he hadn’t run.”

  Michael would have crushed him, mocked Con in falsetto.

  “Grow up.”

  Whatever. I’ve got my money on Seth as the killer. He’s the one who took out both Leo and Meili.

  “Yes, but he told you that you better get out there and take care of Leo’s replacement. That implies the red Angelus is the threat.”

  But you just said he can’t hurt Angeli…

  “No…but his progeny could.”

  Why would a genius kid kill Angeli?

  “Progeny, not prodigy. It means his children.”

  Oh. Well how do you know he has kids?

  “I mean maybe he can make Sentinels of his own.”

  Oooh… Hm.

  Anne pulled her phone from her pocket and called Michael.

  “Me again,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  He sounded annoyed.

  “I need to see you. Where are you? I’m in a cab. Are you still in the city?”

  “No, and I’m busy. But I’ll come to you in an hour or two, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  She disconnected and then leaned forward to speak to the cab driver.

  “Change of plans. Take us to The Plaza, 1 Central Park South.”

  “Us?” asked the driver.

  “I mean me.”

  Where are we going?

  “Michael’s apartment. I have to talk to him about this theory and I think he’s up to something. He said he wasn’t in the city, but I could hear his stupid antique clock bonging in the background.”

  I never realized you hated clocks so much.

  “It keeps you up all nigh—”

  Anne stopped herself, but knew it was too late. Alluding to her romantic past with Michael whilst Con possessed her, didn’t bode well for her future. The last thing she needed was a jealous Irishman in control of her body. He enjoyed finding ways to embarrass her when he wasn’t pissed off.

  “I assume,” she added.

  No worries. I prefer thinking it was the clock that kept you up all night.

  When they arrived, Anne walked into the sumptuous plaza lobby and took a moment to ogle the floor-to-ceiling marble and grand chandeliers. She hadn’t seen it since its renovation in 2008.

  This is fancier than your place. It looks like a palace.

  Anne shrugged. “Apples and oranges.”

  How are we going to get to the private residences? Or, I guess I should say, how are you going to get up there. I could shoot up there any time. I’m much cooler than you.

  “Do you think you could phase me through a floor or two? I know you can’t travel far with me in tow, but maybe just through a floor?”

  I dunno, Annie. What if I couldn’t hold it and solidified you in the middle of a ceiling?

  “I guess we’d find out how grievous a wound I can heal.”

  Anne went into the ladies’ room and found it unoccupied. Con stepped out of her and solidified enough of his right hand to take hers.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Anne nodded. “Fifteenth floor. Apartment 1501 or 1503; he combined them recently, I don’t know what number he kept. Go as far as you can and rest if you need to.”

  Con closed his eyes and concentrated. Anne felt herself becoming lighter until her senses blurred. She recognized the sensation from travel with Michael; she felt as if she’d been transformed into a breeze, unable to control the direction in which she blew. She didn’t know how long passed, but in a while the blur of color and light around her began to manifest defined edges. She found herself in a well-appointed bedroom, decorated in dark woods and masculine navy blue fabrics. The door was shut.

  “Looks like a guest room,” said Anne. “Good job.”

  Con solidified his hand to lean against the wall, panting.

  “It’s a good thing he wasn’t on a higher floor. I’m wrecked.”

  Anne cocked her head. “Do you hear voices?”

  “There are some people in the living room. I saw them.”

  “Michael was there?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you recognize anyone else?”

  “No.”

  Anne cracked open the door, listening to the voices down the hall.

  “Our priority will be to find him,” said Michael’s voice.

  “I’ll put together a team,” said a woman Anne didn’t recognize.

  “I’m going to want Anne and Con on that team,” said Michael. “They each have unique powers we might need to defeat an unknown.”

  “Are you mad?” said another voice. “That oaf just allowed the most dangerous entity on the planet to escape! How can you trust him with anything?”

  “I’m not an oaf, you pompous prick!” said a voice Anne recognized all too well. She turned and found the guest room empty.

  Dammit, Con.

  She strode into the living room and Michael, two men and a woman stood from their seats to face her.

  “Anne!” said Michael. “What are you two doing here?”

  His face grew red. Anne thought he might explode.

  “We had some ideas about the red Angelus. We wanted to share them with you.”

  “I told you I would come to your apartment.”

  “Who said it?” asked Con, eyeballing two men standing to Michael’s right. “Which one of ye bleedin’ ticks called me an oaf?”

  “Con, not now,” said Anne, touching his arm.

  “How many does that make it now, Michael?” said a blond man with impossibly high cheekbones. “These two have seen upward of six Angeli when neither one of them should know the identity of more than one.”

  “What if the Cherubim turn them? They’ll be able to identify us!” said the other man.

  “Cherubim?” asked Anne.

  Michael ran both hands through his hair and tilted back his head, staring at the ceiling as he drew a deep breath.

  “Quiet, all of you,” he said through gritted teeth. He threw down his hands and swept the room with an angry glare, his eyes glowing crystal blue. “I am so tired of all of you! I am tired of rules and people not following rules, and people worrying too much about rules…”

  He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. After a moment he unclenched his fists and readdressed the room.

  “If there’s one thing I hope you’ve come to understand during the course of this meeting, it’s that we are in trouble. Grave trouble. If we don’t work together and use the resources at our disposal…”

  Michael swept a hand towards Anne and Con as he said resources.

  “Ah, now we’re resources,” said Con, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “Precious resources I hope.”

  Michael shot him an angry glance and Con glared back at him.

  “If we don’t work together…then our time on the planet is over. For all of us. Angeli, Sentinels and humans.”

  Anne took a step forward.

  “If we’re going to work together, we’re going to have to know what Cherubim are. Is that the red Angelus?”

  Michael looked at the other Angeli and the tall, dark-skinned woman leaned forward to offer Anne a hand.

  “Hello, Anne. I’ve written quite a bit about you. It’s an honor to finally meet you. My name is Metta.”

  Anne shook her hand.

  “You’ve written about me?”

  “I have. I’ve written about you both. I’m our historian.”

  The two men in the room grudgingly introduced themselves as Ken and Gabr
iel.

  “Do you know something about this visitor? About the Cherubim? Have you recorded red Angeli appearing before?’

  Metta shook her head. “No, but I have a theory. None of us remembers the early days. We only remember as far back as early human history. But we’ve found several underground dwellings, nothing more than caves, really, that are older than we are. They have no entrances or exits. You’ve spent some time in one, Con.”

  He nodded glumly. “Yeah, me and Seth’s old stomping ground.”

  “There’s a carving in one of the caves of the sun and the moon. It’s a story told with pictures and a single word, Cherubim. Our best translation is that the sun and moon are in eternal cycle, one replacing another. The red sun is harsh and punishing, and the blue moon is soothing.”

  “We think we’re the moon,” said Michael. “We don’t judge, we only assist. Like the moon we show mankind a way in the dark.”

  “How poetic. You’re a regular Bill Yeats,” said Con.

  Michael refused to acknowledge him.

  “So the sun symbolizes the Cherubim? You think they’re here to replace you and punish the sinners?”

  “It’s a theory,” said Ken.

  “We think the Cherubim handle human frailties quite differently than we do,” said Gabriel. “Think of them as avenging angels.”

  “Isn’t a cherub supposed to be a fat-faced little baby with wings?” asked Anne. “That doesn’t seem particularly scary. Even the creature I met in the park was young and inexperienced.”

  Michael shook his head. “In Christianity, Cherubim protect God from sin and corruption. Jewish tradition says they have no human feelings. In early Greek culture, similar creatures appeared in art as bulls or lions with wings and human faces, sometimes four of each. The image of the sphinx is similar to some descriptions. Any way you look at it, they aren’t cute little babies.”

  “Somehow, we’ve opened the door for them to enter our world,” said Metta. “Perhaps return to our world. It’s possible we once replaced them and now their time has come again.”

  “But how? Because we recycled an Arch Angelus? Seth is the door?”

  “Possibly,” said Michael. “Or Perfidia itself might be the early sign of a leak between our worlds. We know very little at this point. All of this is conjecture.”

  Michael’s phone rang and he stepped a few feet away from the group to answer it.

  “Maybe they’re just here to give you a rest,” said Anne. “Like you’re the starters and it’s time to hit the bench.”

  Michael strode back to the group.

  “I don’t think so. Children in Johnstown, Pennsylvania found a pile of human bones by the side of the road, covered in ash.”

  “Could it be Seth?” asked Con.

  “Seth hid the bodies of his human victims in Annapolis. Bones and dried skin. He didn’t turn them to ash and litter them by the side of the highway. I think we’ve found the Cherub’s trail.”

  “If we can trust what Seth said, the Cherubim are here to kill the Angeli. He didn’t say anything about people,” said Con.

  “But killing us would make eradicating humans much easier. That’s probably the whole reason they want to kill us; to keep us from interfering with their judgement upon the human race. Those ashes… I think he’s practicing…or simply refueling after Anne nearly killed him.”

  “But why would he attack me if what he really wants is Angeli and people dead?”

  “Perhaps his attack was an attempt to convert you. We were just discussing that before you two arrived…which explains my colleague’s paranoia.”

  “It didn’t feel like conversion. I think it was some kind of reconnaissance. To destroy the Angeli he’d need to create his own Sentinels, right? I think he wanted to see one before attempting to make one.”

  “Maybe ash and bones was his first attempt,” suggested Con.

  “That scenario would bode well for us,” said Ken. “A newly formed Sentinel wouldn’t be much of a threat to any Archs. And it would give our seasoned Sentinels time to find and destroy him.”

  “I should have done it,” mumbled Anne, recalling the Cherub lying helpless at her feet in the park. She cursed herself for not finishing the job.

  Mulling on their Cherubim-spawned Sentinel theory, she had an idea.

  “How do you choose who to turn?” she asked.

  Michael scowled. “What do you mean?”

  “The Sentinel Jai Li didn’t pass her powers to me because I happened to be on that pirate ship. She rowed a boat countless miles into the sea to find me. Why did she pick me?”

  “We told her to find you,” said Ken.

  “And why me? How do you choose a new Sentinel?”

  “We aren’t entirely sure. The names come to us. We keep a list of potentials.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” said Anne. “Anyone on that list near Johnstown, Pennsylvania?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Rathe had his hand on the door handle of his car before he turned and reentered the farmhouse. Leaving Tyannah’s brother in the hallway was a poor idea. He couldn’t afford to have authorities hunting for the girl and complicating her life for the next several decades. He needed to make it look as though the family moved away, abandoning their dilapidated home.

  Eyeballing the crumbling manse, he didn’t think people would find that scenario unlikely.

  Tyannah confirmed his suspicion that few people would miss her or her pig of a brother, so a modicum of effort could go far.

  The two of them removed the body of her brother from the foyer and buried it in the dirt basement beneath the washer and dryer, where people would be less likely to notice disturbed earth. Rathe tore the bloodied floorboards away and tossed them in with the body.

  “My brother broke up with his girl weeks ago, so she won’t care,” Tyannah said as they cleaned. “They’ll miss him at work though.”

  “Call his work. Tell them he quit and moved. Will they find that odd?”

  She shrugged. “I doubt it. He’s had three jobs in as many months.”

  She stared at Donny’s body, now covered with floorboards and blood.

  “You judged him,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “You judged him. Like in the bible. He was weighed on the scales and found wanting. You judged him, righteous like.”

  Rathe shrugged. “True, he was evil. I could smell it. But I saw what he did to you and I didn’t like it.”

  “You were trying to protect me?”

  “Yes…that and trying to keep my own body in one piece. I need you. And he was a terrible person.”

  He kicked some dirt over the body and sighed.

  “He was a big fella, though. I should have gorged myself on his strength. Everything happened too fast.”

  “Gorged? You mean you shoulda eaten him?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He turned away to avoid her questions. She changed tack.

  “Did he go to heaven or hell?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. I have my job and I do it. That’s all I know.”

  “Then how do you know what you do is right? How do you know it isn’t the devil who sent you?”

  He sighed again. “Call your brother’s work.”

  She stared at him a second longer and then made the call. When she finished, Rathe held out his hand and she put the phone in his palm.

  “Let’s go.” He crushed the phone into pieces and dropped it into the shallow grave before covering Donny with dirt. He shifted the washer and dryer back into place as easily as if they were cans of soda on a counter top. When he was done, he turned to find her staring at him, her countenance grim.

  “He beat you. He cut you. He belittled you. Why are you sad?”

  “He was my brother. He wasn’t always mean. He learned what he knew from our daddy. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “But it was. He didn’t have to be cruel to you. He could have stood up for you. He was a bad
man who deserved to die. Believe me. I know.”

  She remained staring at the washer.

  “Now what?”

  “I was just thinking we should write R.I.P. on the washer. It’s like his headstone.”

  “That would really miss the point of hiding his body under the washer, don’t you think?”

  She nodded and mounted the rickety basement stairs as the Cherub tidied up the last of the evidence.

  “I always forgave him,” she said.

  Rathe watched her go.

  “I don’t understand these humans at all,” he mumbled.

  Rathe drove his car and Tyannah followed in her brother’s truck until they reached the parking lot of a large twenty-four hour chain store where they pulled in side by side.

  “Leave the truck here,” he called out the window after struggling to find a way to open it.

  She nodded. By the time she’d hopped out of the truck, Rathe had moved to his passenger seat. He motioned for her to take the driver’s seat.

  “You drive. Head that way,” he said, pointing.

  “West?”

  “Whatever.”

  She drove for an hour before he felt a presence nearby.

  “Pull over.”

  The road had no shoulder, the crumbling blacktop flanked by forest on the left and a sheer rock wall to the right. She slowed.

  “There’s nowhere to pull over.”

  “Just stop then.”

  “In the road?”

  “Stop.”

  She glanced in the rearview mirror and stopped the car as close to the forest as she dared go.

  He stepped out and leaned to poke his head back in the car.

  “Go until you can find a safe place to pull off and wait for me.”

  As she pulled back onto the road, he walked to the rock wall, looked both ways, and then skittered upward, half climbing and half flying to the cliff’s ledge one hundred feet above. He stood on the edge of a dense pine forest, his back to the road. The object of his quest lay half a mile into the trees; he could feel it moving. With supernatural speed he ran toward it, dodging trees and floating above rocks, stopping as the glow of a campfire came into view.

  The campsite boasted one drab olive tent resting on a thick bed of pine needles. Flanked by a campfire circle, a bucket and few other useful items, the tent appeared abandoned, its door flapping in the light breeze that wove its way between the pines. Rathe spotted a dead rabbit hanging by its feet from a nearby branch. He stood behind a tree and watched for movement in the tent.